FA Cup: Colney Heath’s hopes of progress burnt by Cinderford in fiery clash
Woods plays a pass in the FA Cup match between Colney Heath and Cinderford Town. Picture: DANNY LOO - Credit: Picture: DANNY LOO
A fantastic start at home to Cinderford Town was soon forgotten as nine-man Colney Heath crashed out of the FA Cup in a 3-1 defeat.
Jack Woods fired the Magpies into a sixth-minute lead as hopes grew of a repeat of the heroics from 12 months earlier.
But they were trailing by half-time to their Southern League opponents and after conceding a third, the hosts’ day got worse as first Harvey Scott and then goalkeeper Charlie May saw red.
Woods took over the keeping duties and although he wasn’t beaten, Colney Heath were.
The disappointment that was to follow seemed a million miles away when Woods opened the scoring, latching on to a rushed clearance from Alex Harris in the Cinderford goal and curling his effort into the far corner.
At this point the home side were well on top but they allowed the Wiltshire side to get back on terms just four minutes later, Dan McDonald swinging over a corner for Andy Lewis to tuck away.
And the turnaround was complete shortly after as Cinderford broke quickly.
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Lewis led the charge with the ball finally finding its way to Ben Watkins who hammered it beyond May and into the roof of the net.
Those goals took the wind out of the Colney Heath sails and they found chances hard to come by in the remainder of the half.
However, they should have been back on level terms eight minutes after the half-time interval.
They had three glorious chances, all created by the quick feet of Woods.
One low cross from the left was inches away from Spencer Clarke-Mardel and a second fabulous run down the wing ended with Greg Shaw and Scott failing to get a touch in front of goal.
The third delicious delivery landed at the feet of Akim Akinbinu at the back post and completely unmarked but he sliced his shot wide.
And they were made to rue those misses when McDonald made it three on the hour mark.
Any hopes they had of coming back ended when Scott was shown a straight red card following a reckless challenge on 70 minutes and 10 minutes later May walked after lashing out at James Harding.
They had better luck in the League Challenge Trophy on Tuesday though as a Clarke-Mardel goal gave them a 1-0 win at home to Broadfields United.